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    <h1>The JabRef main window</h1>

    <p><em>Note:</em> most menu actions
    referred in the following have keyboard shortcuts, and many are
    available from the toolbar. The keyboard shortcuts are found in
    the pull-down menus.</p>

    <p>This is the main window from where you work with your
    databases. Below the menubar and the toolbar is a tabbed pane
    containing a panel for each of your currently open databases.
    When you select one of these panels, a table appears, listing
    all the database's entries, as well as a configurable selection
    of their fields.</p>

    <ul>
        <li>You decide which fields are shown in the table by
        checking the fields you want to see in the
        <strong>Preferences</strong> dialog.</li>

        <li>Double-click a line of the table to edit the entry
        content. You can navigate the table with the arrow
        keys.</li>

        <li>The table is sorted according to a set of fields of
        your choosing. The default sort order can be set up in
        <strong>Preferences -&gt; Entry table</strong>, but to
        more quickly change the order, click the header of a column to
        set it as the primary sort criterion, or reverse the
        sorting if it is already set. Another click will deselect
        the column as sorting criterion. Hold down <b>CONTROL</b>
        and click a column to add, reverse or remove it as a
        sub-criterion after the primary column. You can add an
        arbitrary number of sub-criteria, but only three levels
        will be stored for the next time you start JabRef.</li>

        <li>Adjust the width of each column by dragging the borders
        between their headers.</li>

        <li>
            Color codes can be toggled in the
            <strong>Preferences</strong> dialog, and they help you
            visualize the completeness of your database by coloring
            cells as follows:

            <ul>
                <li>A <span style="color: red">red</span> cell in the
                leftmost column denotes an incomplete entry.</li>

                <li>A <span style="color: #909000">yellow</span> cell in
                the leftmost column denotes an entry that doesn't
                define all required fields by itself, but that
                contains a cross-reference.</li>

                <li>A <span style="color: blue">blue</span> cell denotes a
                required field.</li>

                <li>A <span style="color: green">green</span> cell denotes
                an optional field.</li>

                <li>An uncolored cell denotes a field which is not
                used by the <em>bibtex</em> program for this type
                of entry. The field can still be edited in
                JabRef.</li>
            </ul>
        </li>
    </ul>

    <h2>Adding a new entry</h2>

    <p>There are several ways to add a new
    entry. The <strong>New entry</strong> menu action shows a
    dialog where you can choose the type of the entry from a list.
    To bypass this dialog, there are also separate menu actions for
    each entry type, and keyboard shortcuts for the most common
    types.</p>

    <p>When a new entry is added, by default an
    <a href="EntryEditorHelp.html">entry editor</a> for the entry
    will be opened. This behaviour can be toggled in the
    <strong>Preferences</strong> dialog.</p>

    <p><em>Note:</em> We strongly recommend learning the shortcuts
    for the entry types you use most often, e.g. CTRL-SHIFT-A for
    adding an <em>article</em> entry.</p>

    <h2>Editing an entry</h2>

    <p>To open an
    <a href="EntryEditorHelp.html">entry editor</a> for an
    existing entry, simply double-click anywhere on the appropriate
    line will open the <a href="EntryEditorHelp.html">entry editor</a>
    (or select the entry and press ENTER).</p>

    <h2>Referencing a <em>bibtex</em> string in a field</h2>

    <p>In JabRef you write the contents of all fields the same way as you
    would in a text editor, with one exception: to reference a
    string, enclose the name of the string in a set of #
    characters, e.g.:<br />
    &nbsp;&nbsp;'#jan# 1997',<br />
    which will be interpreted as the string named 'jan' followed by
    ' 1997'.</p>

    <p>See also: <a href="StringEditorHelp.html">string editor</a>.
    </p>
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